Since my last post I’ve received a great deal of support from a lot of people but also a lot of questions about what’s exactly going on. How does CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukemia) work and how do you get it? Of course, it’s almost impossible to say what causes it but it seems like we know pretty well how it works, so below is a simple compilation of facts and pictures that I’ve found all around the internet.
Every cell in the body has a nucleus that contains chromosomes. To be more specific, 23 pairs of chromosomes.
The most important cause of CML is a translocation of two of them: chromosome 9 (the ABL gene) and chromosome 22 (the BCR gene).
During the division of the cells, these two chromosomes criss-cross, break, and fuse to each other. In doing so, they create so called Philadelphia chromosome.
Philadelphia chromosome is made up of two parts and is also called BCR-ABL.
This new gene produces a specific new protein called tyrosine kinase.
Tyrosine kinase stimulates uncontrolled production of abnormal blood cells by the bone marrow.
Normally, white blood cells grow and divide in an orderly and controlled way, but in leukemia the process gets out of control and the cells divide too quickly, and do not mature. In CML, too many myeloid cells (one of the main types of white blood cells) are produced. The myeloid cells are released into the blood when they are immature and unable to work properly. These immature white blood cells are known as blasts. The immature cells fill up the bone marrow and prevent it from making blood cells properly. As the leukemia cells do not mature, they can’t do the work of normal white blood cells, which leads to an increased risk of infection. Because the bone marrow is overcrowded with immature white cells it also can’t make enough healthy red cells and platelets.
As you can imagine that causes all sorts of problems but that is a story for completely different post…
Over three weeks ago, after long procrastinating, I decided to get my act together and complete all documents needed for my residency application. One of the things that I needed was the medical and chest x-ray certificate. So, on Friday I have taken a day off and went to a medical center to complete all tests. Everything went smooth and after all the measuring, urinating in the cup, blood sucking and a few other procedures I was through with it. At the end I was told that I should expect my results by Thursday, the following week. Sweet as…
Monday morning I received a call at the office. A nurse from the medical center asking me to come to see the doctor about my results. Oops… The red light went on. Something must be wrong. They didn’t do any fasting tests so the usual suspects like cholesterol and sugar where off the hook this time. Liver? White blood cells? Maybe I’ve some minor infection and they are slightly raised. I’ve made an appointment for the afternoon and pretty much spent the whole day worrying what it could be.
When I got to the doctor, he didn’t beat around the bush too long. He told me that my white blood cell count is raised and there are there are immature forms of white blood cells present in my blood. His initial diagnose - leukemia.
Oops! Where’s the air? I can’t breathe!
Everything that he said from now on seems blurry… He said that additional diagnose from a hematologist is required and made an appointment for me for Thursday. From that point it all went pretty quickly. Repeated blood test on Thursday, bone marrow test on Friday (NO! It doesn’t hurt! It is a funny feeling but it doesn’t hurt!), abdomen ultrasound on Monday. Next Thursday, another visit to the doctor. The diagnosis is confirmed. They have found the Philadelphia chromosome (more on that in the next post) which pretty much leaves no doubt. Final diagnosis - Chronic Myeloid Leukemia, probably in an early stage.
The same day my doctor applied to Health Funding Authority in Wellington for a drug called Glivec. It’s a new generation targeted drug that is supposed to allow for controlling the disease and getting the blood picture back to normal. The nice thing was that, even though the doctor said that we should expect the answer within a week or two, they called her back the next day saying that the application is approved and the treatment will be covered by them. So, this Thursday I’m starting the treatment and probably within the next two weeks it will be possible to say what is my response to the drug. There are different options and various opinions on how to treat CML but for now I have some more immediate concerns to take care of…
Everyone says that because I have leukemia, it is really hard to expect that my residency application will be approved. I simply refuse to accept that. I hope that the immigration service will show a little humanity and let me stay here. They have to understand the fact that I have been living and working here for 2 years and my whole life is New Zealand - my home-country of choice. I have a job, a car, a couch and a bloody oil heater that keeps us warm in our cold apartment.
I can’t imagine that I could get kicked out and lose all that (especially the heater :-) ). I would also lose the access to Glivec which poses a serious risk for my health. There is no guarantee I could easily get it in Poland.
So, I’m trying to keep positive and focus on things that need to be resolved in order of immediacy. More news to come as the situation unfolds. Words of support are welcome. :-)
I have just discovered what seems to be a problem with Flickr’s GPS data interpretation. Some time ago I have noticed that some of my pictures are slightly misplaced on my Flickr map. At first I thought it is just the limited accuracy of my GPS receiver. So, I checked the data in the picture manually and according to Google Maps it was all fine. I even went a step further and checked the data from a picture downloaded from Flickr and it’s also correct. So - it’s just Flickr misreading the data somewhere in between.
The picture below shows the wrong placement on the left and the correct one on the right (with the incorrect above on the bridge).
GPS data problem on Flickr
Originally uploaded by piotr zurek.
This week’s weather was pretty good again which gave us a few really foggy mornings. And a lot of opportunities for photo shooting. One day I managed to get out with the camera before work and take a few shots on the marina.
All geotagged of course… :-)
City on a misty morning
Originally uploaded by piotr zurek.
Sun among masts
Originally uploaded by piotr zurek.
…I just didn’t have a good reason. Now I do. Some dicks using that creepy service have used my pictures as the background of their MySpace websites. The problem is that they didn’t simply download the picture and put it up on MySpace - which I’m perfectly OK with. They linked to the source of the picture on my website effectively redirecting the traffic to it.
Why does it bother me? First of all, because it uses my limited traffic (not that I’m anywhere close the limit) and secondly because it distorts my website statistics. So, I’ve removed all the full size photos from the blog and some links are dead now. I was also thinking about replacing them with some nice porn shots or otherwise disturbing photos, but I guess it’s not worth the effort.
